I had a dirty needlestick at work dec 19th. The patient tested negative and I'm negative but I'm still nervous about having the three month test. I'm terrified that I will have seroconversion. I asked my ob today about it and all she said was " we retest for hiv at 36 weeks pregnant" that was in no way comforting!! I just want some piece of mind for the next 6 weeks (30 weeks preg now) any advice? Any comfort? Thanks

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) estimates that of the some 800,000 injuries each year, only about 2 percent (approximately 16,000) involve needles that are likely to be contaminated with HIV. Of those 2 percent of needlestick injuries where HIV-infected blood is known to be present, the chance of HIV transmission is estimated to be between 0.3 and 0.45 percent.

Even IF the patient was HIV positive, for sure, without a doubt, you would STILL only have an 0.3-0.45% chance of catching the virus! And you definitely can't catch HIV from someone that doesn't have it. There is a window period where it doesn't come up in testing, yes, but it's very unlikely the patient was in that window period - HIV isn't THAT prevalent in the general population.